"What are you after this time?" I queried.
"More food," he said, "all I dare steal. I must not steal too much from
any one place. I'll wager my pilferings of last night will pass, not
merely unheeded, but entirely unnoticed. Ofatulena herself is so scatter-
brained that she will never be sure that two loaves vanished from her
oven; I doubt if she will so much as suspect any loss. But I cannot repeat
that depletion of her baking tonight; she might talk. She is not quick-
witted enough to conjecture the truth, if she did her utter loyalty would
keep her mute; she'd impute the theft to some slave and likely as not have
an investigation and advertise her loss. If there happened to be a crafty
inspector with the Praetorians and if they have lingered, they might
suspect the truth, beat the woods for us and capture us. So I must take a
little here and a little there.
"Then I want another quilt for myself, and shoes for both of us. Is there
anything else you can think of?"
"Manifestly!" I said, "we need a slave-scourge, a branding-iron with the
long F for 'runaway', [Footnote: _Fugitivus_. The short F stood for _fur_,
"thief."] a brazier big enough to heat the branding iron and enough
charcoal to fire it once.
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